


A Crismes Carol

by eafay70



Series: A Very Merry "Advent" Calendar [24]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Ghosts, M/M, Real Madrid CF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 20:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9016222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eafay70/pseuds/eafay70
Summary: Cristiano is visited by a spirit on Christmas Eve.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deiv17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deiv17/gifts).



> ¡Feliz Navidad! Espero que te guste.
> 
> Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate! And _chag orim sameach_ to my fellow Chanukah celebrants!

Cristiano Ronaldo's father was dead.  
Perhaps that seems a bit tactless as an opening line. However, the story makes no sense if the reader is unaware of that fact. And quite frankly, if it's a good enough opening line for the one and only Charles Dickens, it's a good enough opening line for this author. In any case...  
Cris missed his father when Christmas rolled around. The man had been far from perfect, but Christmas was the time of year when one forgave one's loved ones. Right now, Cris was coaching his son through the forgiveness process.  
"Now that Salomé has said sorry," he told Ninho, "you have to accept her apology."  
"OK." Ninho gave Salomé a hug. "Like this?"  
"Fine by me," she giggled.  
Cris nodded. "Then it's fine by me, too."  
"Let's watch TV until your papi comes home to play with us!" Ninho led Salomé to the den. Neither child said a word to Cris.  
Cris sighed sadly. James was due back any minute from a volunteering shift at the local soup kitchen. Clearly, the kids missed him terribly. But they didn't seem to notice Cris unless he was doling out discipline. When he had returned from volunteering at the soup kitchen the day before, the kids had greeted him without turning away from the TV. Did they really prefer James that much?  
The front door opened, and Cris's favorite voice in the world rang out, "I'm back!"  
"Papi! Yay!" Salomé ran up to James and hugged him tightly. Ninho copied her actions.  
Cris walked over and gave James a quick kiss. "I believe there's a game awaiting you."  
"Yeah! Come play!" said Ninho.  
"OK!" James followed the kids to the den.  
Cris went to the kitchen and started making dinner. It was Christmas Eve, probably the worst night of the year to tell James that he felt ignored by the kids. When his eyes fell on the spice cabinet where a ring box was expertly hidden, he shook his head sadly. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all.

A few hours later, when Salomé and Ninho inexplicably started vomitting and James planted himself in the guest room to keep an eye on them, Cris really wanted to go back in time and somehow meet James before either child had been born, so they could grow up from birth with both fathers and not have a clear favorite. He tossed and turned before falling asleep.  
 _"Meu filho..."_  
Cris sat up with a start. "Dad?" He'd know that voice - and the face staring at him - anywhere, no matter how many years had passed. _"És tu?"_  
"Yes." The spirit smiled sadly. "You seemed so distraught that I asked Our Heavenly Father to let me pay you a visit. What troubles you, my son?"  
"I don't know if they love me!" Cris began to cry, and his father gave him a hug. (How was a spirit able to give him a hug that felt exactly like the hugs he'd received so long ago? He decided that he didn't care.) "The kids are always looking for James, always playing with him...I don't want to find out that they were scared of me."  
"And now you don't know if you want to marry James." Cris nodded. "Let me show you a few things, okay?"  
Cris took a deep breath to stop crying. "I've always trusted you, Dad. I still do."  
"I know." His father took his hand. "First stop, a Christmas past."

Cris found himself on the second floor of the soup kitchen, looking down at the Christmas brunch and gift exchange. "Am I down there, too?"  
"No," answered his father, who was still holding his hand. "Or rather, not yet. This is the year of the big power outage, and you're with a few other volunteers making sure the shelters have extra blankets and such."  
Cris gasped. "So this is the year that..." His father nodded and pointed to the tree, where a skinny young man was talking to someone they couldn't see.  
"How can you say something like that at a soup kitchen on Christmas, Toni?" The skinny man was clearly annoyed with whoever was behind the tree. "I came here to try to forget the fact that my husband has been dead for a year and a half, and you thought that you should set me up on a date?"  
"No." A blond man slightly taller than the skinny man came into view. "I thought that you should meet one of the other volunteers because he has a son about as old as Salomé. And I thought you should meet this guy because his husband was killed by a drunk driver two months ago, and maybe you could help him as a fellow widower."  
"But...but...a soup kitchen?!" The skinny man shook his head. "I can't have a conversation about dead spouses while I'm in a soup kitchen!"  
"Then don't have that part of the conversation here." Toni sighed. "James, you'll like this guy. He's big-hearted, he has a great sense of humor...Even if you don't fall in love, which is impossible because I'm never wrong, you'll be good friends."  
Cris groaned. "Toni hasn't shut up about being right about us since."  
"I can scare him out of that some other night," promised Cris's father. "Next stop, a Christmas present."

Cris now found himself in a hotel room, facing a TV stuck on a menu in Chinese. "Where are we?"  
"Aruba." His father pointed to a suitcase next to the TV. "Don't you recognize the paint stain on the side?"  
Cris blinked twice. "That's Mom's suitcase!" Sure enough, his mother emerged from the bathroom, looked at the TV, and facepalmed. "Dad? Why is the TV in Chinese?"  
"It was in English when she arrived," explained his father. "She tried to switch it to Portuguese, but it obviously didn't work. Then she tried calling the front desk, but nobody spoke Portuguese. That was about an hour ago."   
His mother sat down on the foot of her bed. "Why couldn't the kids have chipped in to send me somewhere where I know the language?" She groaned again and started mumbling something about evil technology when her cellphone rang. "Hello?"  
"Hi, Dolores!" The phone's volume was so high that Cris had no trouble hearing the caller. "Are we in-laws-to-be yet?"  
"Not yet, Pilar. Neither son has proposed."  
Cris couldn't believe his ears. "My mom's talking to my boyfriend's mom about us proposing?"  
"This is your mother we're talking about, Cris. Every night, she prays for either you or James to propose already. She even asks me to put in a good word with St. Valetine!" Cris's father sighed. "But you know the story of how she made sure I got her the exact engagement ring she wanted. We can expect nothing else from her."  
His mother laughed. "You didn't hear this from me, because I didn't hear it from Ninho, but James was measuring Cris's ring finger with yarn the other day."  
"Well, since I didn't hear this from Salomé, you didn't hear it from me," replied Pilar, "but Cris recently purchased a new rack for the spice cabinet and wouldn't let anyone help him set it up. It was as if he wanted to hide something in there."  
Cris gasped. "She knows?!"  
"Don't panic, Cris," his father said calmly. "Final stop, a Christmas future."

Cris found himself facing a very familiar hill. "Dad? Why are we here?"  
"When Ninho grows up, he starts a tradition of visiting the family plots on Christmas. And he always goes to my grave first."  
A tall man carried a toddler up the hill and said, _"Olá, vovô."_ He pointed to the toddler and continued, "You remember my son, José Dinis."  
"Hi!" The little boy waved as his namesake's tombstone. "My grandpa couldn't come this year because he hurt his knee and Daddy wouldn't let him go out on such a cold day. But he says hi, too."  
"Papi went to the soup kitchen this morning." Ninho smiled. "Everyone always asks him to tell the story of the volunteers who fell in love. I can't blame them."  
Cris was confused. "If he wouldn't let me go out because of the cold, why did he let me go to the soup kitchen?"  
"He didn't." The spirit hugged Cris. "I love you, son."  
"I love you, Dad."

Cris blinked a few times and saw James sitting on the foot of their bed, looking worried. "You sounded really upset, babe. Was it a nightmare?"  
"No, it was...my father." James arched an eyebrow in surprise as Cris continued. "It just...reminded me of how much I miss him, even if he wasn't anywhere near a perfect dad."  
James kissed him on the nose. "In any case...Merry Christmas."  
"Merry Christmas, hon. How are the kids?"  
"I think it's a 24-hour bug. They're a little sleepy, but they wanted everyone to open at least one present under the tree before they went back to bed."  
Cris and James proceeded to the tree, where Salomé and Ninho were each holding a wrapped present. _"Feliz Natal!"_ said Ninho. "This is the one you should open, Daddy."  
"Open this one, Papi," said Salomé.  
James opens the present. It's a framed picture of the four of them outside the soup kitchen where fate had brought them together. "Thank you! It's beautiful!" A group hug ensued.  
"Daddy, open yours!" demanded Ninho.  
Cris did as he was told. It was a ring box. "What?"  
James opened the box and knelt on one knee. "The kids kept us apart so I wouldn't spill the beans. So?"  
Cris turned to Ninho. "Do you know what's in the spice rack?" Ninho shrugged. "If you do, can you go get it?" Ninho ran off with Salomé on his heels. They returned with the ring box. "Thanks, kids." Cris got down on one knee, opened the box, and said, "So?"  
Laughter and kissing ensued. It was the best Christmas ever.

**Author's Note:**

> Now go enjoy your day!


End file.
